Sound-deadening packing for builders  use



(No Moder.) V S. CABOT.

SOUND DEADENING PACKING FOR BUILDERS USE. V No. 511,584. Patented Dec. 26, 1893.

WITNESS/58: I ll/ w; m INVENTOH ATTORNEY.

- Brookline, in the county of Norfolk and State Uivrrnn STATES PATENT OFFICE.

SAMUEL'CABOT, OF BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS.

SOUND-DEADENING PACKING FOR BUILDERS USE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent'No. 511 ,584, dated December 26,1893.

Application filed September 26,:1893. Serial No. 486,530. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern;

Be it known that I, SAMUEL OABoT, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Sound-Deadening Packing for Builders Use, of which the following is a specification.

My invention is related to the class of man ufactured packings, used by builders for filling in walls and placing under clap-board's and linings to deaden sounds and hinder their transmission from room to room, and to maintain an equable temperature within a building.

My invention is designed to accomplish these results in an especially efficient manner and at little cost.

Hitherto, fibrous substances have been em ployed for these purposes, frequently in the form of paper. Disintegrated fiber, such as hay, cotton, 850., gives good results, except that its liability to catch and rapidly to convey fire makes it to some extent dangerous. A United States patent, No. 488,869, dated December 27, 1892, was granted to me for a manufactured packing of this sort in which the danger from fire was overcome by.sub-- jecting the disintegrated fibrous substance used, such as hay, straw, &c., to a fire-proofing process particularly adapted for retarding the combustion of such substances. This method of protecting the packing material involved its treatment with chemicals, and

added to the cost of the finished article; as also to its weight and in some degree to the difficulty of handling it agreeably.

In the present invention, by substituting for the fire-proofed hay, or salt-hay, $50., a material which without chemical treatment of any kind is sufficiently slow to take fire and to propogate it, I make agreat saving. Such a material I have discovered in sea-weed and salt water plants, especially those of laminated structure such as sea-grass and many fiat leaved algae.

I have found that sea-weeds of every kind whendried and compacted. together are very slow to burn as compared with hay-and similar round fibers, and that not only is this preeminently true of the fiat and leaf-like forms, but that such kinds are at the same time exceedingly well qualified to deaden sound and to act as non-conductors of heat. These characteristicsare in part due to the laminated character of a compacted layer made with 5 such material and the thin air strata stagnated between the leaves, but also because the sheathing made therefrom is elastic and at the same time soft, and therefore badly adapted for conveying heat or sound vibra- 6o tions.

For convenience in transportation and use and for other reasons, I make from dried seaweed,and preferably from the grass-like forms thereof, pieces of packing constructed byattaching the same to sheets of paper or cloth and like flexible substances.

The drawings which form part of this'specification illustrate these products, showing in Figure 1,asheet so made in plan. Fig. 2, is an edge elevation of the same sheet. Fig. 3, is a perspective view of several folds of my packing in which the elastic material is held between two sheets. Fig. 4., shows packing put.

into the form of narrow strips for special puroses. p In Figs. 1 and 2, they dried sea-weed 10 is first distributed on a flexible base 12, and then stitched or tacked through by ordinary sewing devices, so as to hold both together. In Fig. 3, the materialis compressed and held by stitching between two sheets of paper of coarse quality, the drawing representing part of a bale in which the sheathing is folded upon itself, made in this case by using paper in the form of long webs. Fig. 4, shows a piece of packing of square cross section inclosed in paper or cloth adapted for filling special cavities. v I

This packing nay be nailed in place and 0 one, two, or three'thicknesses can of course be used. Its slowness to burn is in part due to the laminated characterof the compressed sea-grass, but also to its composition, for in sea-weeds growing at thebottom of the salt 5 water, silica seems in part to take the place of carbon as found in land plants, while all sea-weeds'contain sodium. and magnesium to its quick combustion, and that after decomposition has been in great part accomplished there remains a charred mass which occupies nearly the original bulk of the seaweed, which it is very difficult to consume, but which continues to act as a non-conductor of heat so long asit holds its position. By availing myself of these properties of dried seaweed I have invented a sheathing well adapted for th objects specified, without subjecting the material therein to chemical treatment of any kind and thereby adding to its cost.

I do not wish it understood thatI'limit myself to the precise details herein given, for

they clearly admit of modification and change without affecting the principle underlying my invention. I have, for instance, recommended the process of sewing as the best means for attaching the fibrous matter to the base that carries it, but it is also feasible to use a cement for this purpose; or metallic staples may also be applied, and wire in stapling dried, inclosed and held within a covering of coarse paper; substantially as described.

3. As. an article of manufacture; an elastic sheet packing for builders use, consisting of a layer of dried sea-weed stitched between sheets of thin flexible material; substantially as described.

SAM. GABOT.

\Vitnesses:

GUSTAV F. H. KIECKEBUSCH, MARCH G. BENNETT. 

